


i live between concrete walls

by haipollai



Category: Captain America (Comics)
Genre: Brainwashing, Character Study, Gen, Identity Issues, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-20
Updated: 2013-03-20
Packaged: 2017-12-05 22:55:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/728825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haipollai/pseuds/haipollai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone, probably the General since he said pithy things like that, someone told him once that war is hell. It was definitely the General. He looked at Bucky like he regretted every damn thing about him, as if somehow Bucky was all his fault. And then he said it. War is hell.</p>
<p>Then he shook his head and dismissed him.</p>
<p>Bucky didn't think anything of it. The General was an old man and Bucky was young, about to head into his greatest adventure. Not even the train full of clowns and poison could slow him down, not really. He got his first kill behind him and was ready to face an army that carried Death with them.</p>
<p>Except-</p>
            </blockquote>





	i live between concrete walls

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Concrete Walls by Fever Ray.  
> An old WIP that I finally got around to finishing.

Someone, probably the General since he said pithy things like that, someone told him once that war is hell. It was definitely the General. He looked at Bucky like he regretted every damn thing about him, as if somehow Bucky was all his fault. And then he said it. War is hell.

Then he shook his head and dismissed him.

Bucky didn't think anything of it. The General was an old man and Bucky was young, about to head into his greatest adventure. Not even the train full of clowns and poison could slow him down, not really. He got his first kill behind him and was ready to face an army that carried Death with them.

Except now he's been through the mud and his hands have blood on them and he can't sleep. He sits outside the house they've been quartered in, hoping he didn't wake Cap with the latest nightmare. He's gotta be strong because their are superheros running about. Steve and Jim and Toro and Namor, all of them better and stronger. If there were four, it felt inevitable that why not a fifth? One more to round out the team. Replace normal ol' Bucky Barnes.

The patrolmen eye him uneasily as they pass and he flashes them a grin in the darkness, saluting them with his knife. The light from the flashlights catches on the metal, shining dull and angry. He twists it easily between his fingers when they're gone, testing the weight. It's a habit he picked up with the S.A.S., liked to flash it around when he was sent back to Lehigh, show them all he was a big boy now.

It's a cloudy night. Bordering on rain so with the patrol men gone, continuing their rounds, there's no one else. He's the only idiot out here.

He rests the tip of the blade very lightly against the stone step he's sitting on. War is hell. He knows the truth in those words now. He wonders if the General is still sitting there, thinking of the boy he sent to hell. The boy he trained and groomed to crawl through the mud with a knife between his teeth while Captain America stole everyone's attention. He knows exactly where to slide a knife to pass easily through a man's ribs or if that fails, how to twist his neck properly. When they told him he would be Captain America's partner they left out details. No one told him he would be the assassin so Captain America could be shown on American screens as the noble soldier. So their precious super soldier did not have to carry that guilt.

Not that he would tell them no now that he knows what his real use is.

Not now that he knows Steve Rogers and he knows how that kind of death would weigh him down, destroy him. Him and his stupid optimism and his stupid dream that America really is a great place. Bucky just wants a fight, but Steve believes in the fight.

The door behind him opens and Bucky instinctively tightens his grip on the knife until he sees it's just Steve and then it disappears into his boot. Steve doesn't like watching him play with it. He gets the same guilt in his eyes the General has. Bucky hates it more on Steve, even if he has more of a right to it. Steve has a blanket for him that he wraps around Bucky's shoulders.

Bucky's hands immediately start itching for something to fill them. A gun, a bottle. He doesn't care. He focuses on the pressure of the metal on his calf, takes some reassurance that he's not defenseless. Not like the Nazis would attack them there but he is in a war with no real lines. Where death rains from the sky and needs no provocation. He fills his hands with the blanket, clutches at rough wool and draws it tightly around him. It's better then nothing.

"Bucky-"

"I don't want to talk."

Steve sighs and there's that disappointment, everyone's always disappointed in him. He doesn't cry because he's no longer a kid. He is a soldier and a man and a killer of men.

"I was going to say get some sleep. Should be getting new orders tomorrow."

"I'll try."

He waits for the sound of the door closing and Steve's footsteps moving carefully away, over creaky wood so as not to wake anyone else on the team. When he's sure Steve is gone, he buries his head against his arms. He is not crying because he is not a kid and maybe he's crying a little bit for that same reason. He doesn't realize Steve has come back until he hears the door open and he's suddenly being physically hauled up. He bites back his yelp of surprise.

"Not going to let you sit here alone."

"Where are you taking me?"

"You're getting some rest even if I have to knock you out."

Bucky considers arguing, just to be stubborn and prove he can but Steve has that look in his face. The one that comes before stupid decisions, the one that's impossible to argue him out of so he sighs and let's himself be carried up to his bed. Steve dumps him in it and Bucky is just grateful that Steve doesn't try to tuck him in.

Their arrangements in the house mean that they're sharing a room and as he tries to make himself comfortable, he hears Steve sitting down on his own bed and then the faint sounds of paper. Bucky flips around and glares at him. "Aren't you sleeping, Captain?"

"I don't need much more sleep." Bucky can't make out his expression in the dim light but what he can see makes him want to shrink down into nothing. He doesn't deserve that care. "I know you have nightmares, Bucky, but it'll be okay. This war will end, you'll get to go home, see your sister."

Bucky doesn't feel very tired. He knows part of that is simple fear about what closing his eyes will bring. He sits up and the different angle means he can see Steve's face so much better. He can see the sad tug on his lips. "What about you? Any plans for when this war ends? Find some nice gal, live that American dream you're fighting for?"

"I don't get that dream, Bucky. I'm Captain America. I don't get to stop."

-

There is a letter waiting for him from his sister when he's back from the briefing. He stares at the envelope for a long time, turning it back and forth between his fingers. He can hear the rest of the Invaders, moving around. Toro and Namor are arguing over something. He doesn't care what. It all feels silly and childish when staring at the letter addressed to him in her familiar loopy handwriting.

He finally reaches for his knife and carefully slices it open. It feels proper, better then just tearing it apart. Becca deserves proper even if she'll never know. He reads through the letter once, and then again, and again. The words are silly, pointless. She's talking about school and a boy, he took her to the fair. She misses her brother. All normal things. There's a part scribbled out and he holds it up to the light, barely making out the words still present underneath. He kissed me.

Something catches in his throat. Something that he swallows back hard.

She gets to have a normal life. That's why he's out here, slogging through the mud, getting shot at. So she can go to school and not worry about the dead and dying. He'll take care of her. There's no one else and he doesn't want her to forget him, forget what he's done for her. It's selfish and terrible but he's never been a good person.

But if what he's doing now makes things a little easier for her, then he's done the right thing.

Bucky loses track of how long he sits there, reading over those few lines of normality. Wishing he could fall into the page, have the life she was living. Not that he would know what to do with himself. The Army had always been his home. Even before he was sent off to train with the S.A.S. They were training him there on base, training him and preparing him to live his life in war. And now here he is, not even sure what he's fighting for except for these brief letters he gets.

Steve talks about after the war. About going home. Except Bucky's home has always been an army base. He thinks Steve forgets that sometimes. Or maybe Steve just doesn't want to remember. Bucky can understand that. Some things in life are shit and if he can just focus on the good, if he can remember his sister's smile or the smell of Gretchen's hair. Except when he closes his eyes to picture that all he can see is a private with his cheek blown away, leaving him with a permanent gaping smile, and the women with their hair cut short, declaring them collaborators.

He doesn't cry.

He is a soldier so he doesn't cry. This isn't worth crying over.

Bucky ignores the way his hands shake as he carefully folds the letter back up and slips it back into the envelope it came in. For a second he just looks at her hand writing before shoving it all deep into his rucksack. It'll be there later, another time. If this war ever ends, when he needs to remember what it is like to be human.

Everyone else is hanging around downstairs. They don't ask about the letter and he doesn't volunteer anything. This is his family now, his brothers in arms. Steve and Jim trying to be their parents as Bucky lets himself be drawn into conversation with Toro.

-

Bucky likes fighting beside Toro. All of the Invaders had their own skills, their own strengths. Most of them obvious. No that's not right. All of them obvious, the Atlantean prince and the Torches and the Super Soldier himself. All of them something more then human, except for Bucky himself.

The normal boy fighting beside gods.

Night's fallen and they're all tucked into foxholes, there's no other option. No abandoned houses or army bases near by to take shelter in. He can hear Namor and Jim bickering somewhere close, but there's not enough light to see exactly where. There's a little reassurance in just hearing their voices. Knowing everyone is still alive.

He adjusts his gun across his lap and moves a little closer to the small fire Toro started. It's barely enough to give off heat, but somewhere through the trees are Germans huddled in their own foxholes.

Steve joins them after a minute. Bright blue and red hidden under a dark green coat.

"Thought you'd go sit with the adults," Bucky snarks. The cold gnaws on his toes and temper equally, but Steve just smiles.

"They're arguing about something too scientific for me to understand. Thought it'd be more fun over here."

"Of course we're more fun, we understand what it means to have fun," Toro fishes out a deck of cards from somewhere in his bag. He pulls out half a bar of chocolate with it. Steve's shield becomes their table with all their bets carefully piled over the star. Chocolate and cigarettes and a torn out piece from some French magazine. They play until even Steve's fingers are numb. Bucky has two pieces of frozen chocolate in a pocket and a bent cigarette. They're all grinning, blatantly cheating 

Steve finally says they should try to get some shut eye, tomorrow won't be any easier and somehow Bucky ends up tucked between the two of them.

Suddenly he remembers once again that he's only human. They need to protect him. His smile fades, the little bit of joy they'd managed to steal from the night slipping out of his grasp once again.

-

Bucky watches Steve fall back to the ocean. His sleeve is stuck and he knows he's not getting out. Not this time. He's just a boy and there's only so much luck in the world for boys like him. There's a letter sitting on his bunk. He had meant to read it before leaving but there wasn't enough time, so he told himself he would open it as soon as they got back from this.

He closes his eyes and whispers an apology into the wind. After his mom died, he stopped believing in God. Stopped believe in a lot of things. Right now he prays that everything he's done, the dead left behind him on three continents, is all enough to ensure she has a good life.

The bomb goes off. Bucky Barnes is thrown off in the blast. As good as dead by the time he hits the water and disappears beneath it.

-

The world moves on, remembering a boy in red tights and a blue jacket but the face behind the domino mask, he's much less important in the long run. Interchangeable for any boyish face.

Someone else picks up the shield and someone else is made his sidekick and the world moves on. 

-

The Winter Soldier hunches his shoulders against the wind as the motorcycle cuts through traffic. The wind makes the mild April weather cold and biting. Something deep inside him shivers and aches, pounding in time with his pulse. He does not understand where the feeling comes from, the cold means nothing to him. At most it's an annoyance, nothing to ruin his good shot with. He has his orders and he has his job to do.

The motorcycle pulls to a stop beside a plain black Mercedes. Some deaths need to look like an accident so they draw no suspicion but some need to be loud. They need to be made an example of. He raises the gun, an automatic rifle and pours bullets into the car next to him.

He takes the motorcycle to an empty field outside the city limits and torches it. Other people will be blamed for the crime, credit isn't for him. It never is and the Winter Soldier accepts that. He is nothing but a machine whose only purpose is death. All he needs to do is get the job done.

The Winter Soldier doesn't agonize over what it means to be human, if he is human. A glance at his left arm tells him very clearly that human is the last thing he is. At least the agents he train have the privilege of being whole.

The gun is dumped outside the airport and he catches a flight back to Moscow by way of India. There is no welcoming party waiting for him. He weaves his way through the families greeting each other and finds a car waiting for him. His handler is there, and hands him a newspaper. His kill is the headline, some group of Neo-Nazis has been blamed and his handler gives him a nod of approval.

"We have another assignment, comrade."

The Winter Soldier nods. He has no family to see. Only the missions.

-

James Barnes died from the explosion over the English Channel. Irreversible brain damage that erased all traces of the person he had been. He became nothing but a body trained to rain down death.

A small blue cube doesn't care about things like medical fact.

James Barnes is revived, dragged from hell kicking and screaming to a world and a body that is no longer his.

-

From where he stands on the boardwalk, he stares out over the ocean, watching the small waves break over the beach. He can hear the city behind him, cars moving over the streets and under it the constant crash of the waves on the sand. A never ending heartbeat. The sun slowly comes up catching the ocean and clouds, reflecting

For a second he is the Winter Soldier on the edge of the Baltic, watching a body chained to a concrete block sink into the inky darkness.

He is Sergeant James Barnes falling into the greedy Atlantic.

He is Bucky Barnes, standing at this exact spot holding his dad's hand and making up stories for his little sister.

He is… _he is_. Bucky has to close his eyes to just let it sink in. He's all of those things, all of those people existed. Still exist. They're all apart of him, and it's not the worst fate to live up to.

There is a switchblade in his pocket. He pulls it out and very carefully carves a few letters into the wood. He makes them deep and legible. When he's done, he very carefully runs his fingers over them, feeling out the harsh edges, burning them into his skin. People are out, cleaning up the refuse that gathered over night. Bucky pockets his switchblade and turns to leave.

Leaving only the letters JBB behind him. Carved permanently into the wood. James Buchanan Barnes was here, and nothing can change that.


End file.
